Is degrowth incompatible with improved middle class and poor living standards if the rich didn't take so much?
No, but it's antithetical to everything we think and believe for Capital to not take its profits before everyone else.
You might approach the footprint of a medium sized town if you built your own orbital lair and lived like a cyberpunk oligarch in space. Maybe.
Of course for some resources there is little difference at all. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos don’t eat much more than you do.
Money is not physical. Start redistributing physical stuff and you’ll find that soaking the rich barely makes a dent.
There's "rich people" buying houses, which are investment funds that buy property to rent - that is still availalbe on the market and isn't decreasing the supply of housing.
Rich people buying homes for personal use can't have an appreciable effect on pricing. You couldn't afford a billionaire's eighth home in whatever city even if it were available for sale anyway.